DREADFUL GALE AT LYTTELTON.

Evening Post, Issue 129, 8 July 1865, Page 2

DREADFUL GALE AT LYTTELTON.

Last Friday night the port w»3 visited by another storm, exceeding in violence that recorded in our issue of the 24th ult. For the previous twenty-four hours the barometer had truthfully indicated the coming storm. In the early part of the morning of Friday there was a strong indication of one oi our old-fashioned black north-casters. The thick fog was coming up the harbour in great quantities, accompanied by a slightly drizzling rain. Things looked ominous ; the barometer registered down to 28.30, much lower than the storm register a few weeks ago. About four o'clock the wind veered round to W.S.W., and then S.W. The gale, at six o'clock, was terrific ; at seven, the lighter William, belonging to Messrs. Cameron Brother?, began to suffer damage to her bulwarks from her close proximity to the jetty; after hammering away her stern and bulwarks on the starboard quarter, her owners succeeded in freeing her from the jetty. At eight o'clock, the gale still increasing, the hulk Gratitude, lying off Dampier's Bay, broke away from her moorings, and got safely beached opposite Leslie's boarding-house, Norwich quay, with loss of main-mast and part of the starboard bulwarks. How she had threaded her way through the fleet of I small vessels anchored in her course, must puzzle even an old salt. The little steamer Betsy Douglas began to exhihit signs of distress ; those in charge had succeeded in getting up steam, and she was kept up by this to her anchor, when a short lull favoured the tiny craft, and she ultimately reached a better anchorage closer in to Dampier's Bay. At nine o'clock the heavy pelting rain descended in torrents. The roaring of the sea and wind was frightful. Ou Norwich Quay or Government Jetty, it was all but impossible to keep a footing. At daybreak it was apparent that serious damage had been done to the boats at anchor. The fine whaleboat belonging to the Police Officers was found to have come adrift, and her remains strewed the rfeach. Mr. Stanford's new whaleboat, Lady Gay Spanker, only bought and paid for on Friday afternoon f at a cost of £45, for the purpose of working the mail service to and from the shore, was found hopelessly destroyed. Mr. James O'Neill's fine whaleboat, lately used for the conveyance of the mails, was also

destroyed, and scattered on the rocks near the Custom House. The cutter yatch, Annie Ogle, was sunk, and a host of craft and smaller boats more or less injured. During the height of the gale, the schooner Shamrock, Captain Hays, broke way from her holding tackle, and in charge of her chief officer she made sail and proceeded down the harbour, but was fortunately brought up, after she got under the shelter of the land below Rhodes' Bay.— Times.